Martyr
by HFS
Summary: Ron finds Harry on the cold tile floor, oh my? Harry says what he really wants. R for themes, words


Title: Martyr Category: Angst/Romance Rating: R Summary: Harry doesn't want to die. Not really. Disclaimer: I own nothing.  
  
...go  
  
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Ronald Weasley can't believe that he can't believe his eyes. This was to be expected, really. But nobody would admit that should something like this happen, it would prove that Harry Potter, despite his misleading body and mind, was actually a real person. And Ron was furious that he hadn't seen it. Harry was a person, this he knew before anyone else, except maybe Dumbledore, but he didn't count. So, with all the stress that Harry Potter was holding inside, it was only logical that his best friend would find him lying still and cold on the bathroom floor, a sinister black potion bottle empty in his open hand.  
  
"Harry..." His tone was sad, not wild with the ecstasy of terror, or the rapture of hate. No, he was true-blue really sodding sad. Of course, sad is immensely inappropriate, no word in any language can even cover what Ron felt, but sad is a pure and simple enough one to fit the situation.  
  
These moments of contemplation made Ron mentally crucio himself, what the fuck are you going to do about Harry, emo boy? So Ron let his knees buckle, they slammed to the ground so he could kneel by Harry. Because it is proven that this always works, Ron shouts Harry's name and shakes his shoulders, surely the potion has only done enough that he should be so easily regained. No, wait a tick.  
  
Ron was sweating, but he shivered. He fingered his wand. How do you get the poison out? Accio wouldn't work, that was just stupid. He remembered a hex Malfoy had once tried to use on him, and would've hugged the Slytherin for his blessing in disguise. "Gastrus Purgis!" Ron muttered. Harry's stomach convulsed, and vomit was about to explode out of his mouth when Ron thought of the whole you-can-choke-on-vomit complication. "Ennervate!"  
  
In eerie synchronicity, Harry and the contents of his gut both flew up, and Harry's head whipped to the toilet, purging Harry's body. Ron held up Harry's chest from beneath, his other hand grabbing toilet paper for Harry's mouth. Harry retched and groaned, but Ron held him up, Harry was supporting himself on the toilet bowl, but it wasn't enough. When Harry's stomach was empty, sucked into itself like a raisin, he looked up, met Ron's eyes, blue and wet with tears of sorrow and joy both. Ron completely forgot the white papery stuff in his long, skin covered thing with other little skin covered things sticking out at the end, using the skin covered thing (my my and a second one too!) to pull Harry into him, Harry who was so small Ron easily covered most of the boy's body, a shield made of flesh and bone, courtesy Weasley #6.  
  
"God, Harry..."  
"Ron..."  
  
Their ghost-sentences fluttered and died on their lips, words were still too weak to convey the abstraction of relief and guilt and sadness that was all mixed together and finding an exit only in the mingled tears that ran down flushed cheeks, unashamed that the other should see themselves like this. Ron clutched at Harry like someone would clutch something that was being washed away by deep sea waves. Aligning the metaphors, Harry held to Ron like one would hold a life preserver, as if Harry was being washed away. Which he was, in a hundred ways.  
  
Harry looked up to Ron, guiltily, apologetically. Ron managed to give him a relatively broad smile, but under other circumstances, it was a feeble grin. I'm sorry said Harry, though he didn't open his mouth.  
  
Don't be. said Ron, similarly silent. It's just that... Harry looked away and took his arms off Ron as he conveyed this thought to him, lips still pursed.  
  
Why? asked Ron  
  
Because...I don't know! There's a lot of stuff.  
  
Ron but his lower lip in agreement, thinking of the myriad everyday and once-in-a-lifetime things he dealt with himself, Harry has that times a shitload-illion.  
  
Breaking the silence, Ron asked, in the gentlest way such a harsh, if not necessary question could be asked, "Do you want to die?"  
  
Harry, who had composed himself as much as possible, broke.  
  
"No! I really don't Ron!" His eyes had rebuilt their supply, tears streamed down his cheeks in torrents of salty emotion. "I want...I want..." He staggered on most of his words. "I want to go to breakfast tomorrow and catch the post just before it knocks over my juice! I want to play Beater for one game! I want to apologize to Malfoy, and to shake his hand! And I want to finish school!" Harry sobbed.  
  
Ron gestured helplessly, aimlessly at the air, which was thick with tension.  
  
"And I want to have a flat with you!" Ron blushed, he wanted that, too. "And Hermione will come in and scold us for living in such a mess! And...and..." He took several moments for tears. "And I want to climb Ben Nevis! I want to race you to the top, and we get there the same time, and Hermione rolls her eyes, that way she does. You know that way?" Ron knew. "And I want to fall asleep on the train and miss my stop in London and end up in Dover! I want to ruin dinner one night! And I want to hate doing taxes, but you'll know just what to do! And I want to see Ginny on her wedding day, and to see the twins with tears in their eyes! I want all that, I don't want to die!"  
  
Ron was somewhat a hell of a lot taken aback.  
  
"I don't want to fight a war, or kill the villain." Harry said this; he had stopped crying, his voice still quavered. "I don't want to be the hero with a heroic life; I want to be a person with a normal, ordinary, wonderful life of typical things."  
  
He looked Ron in the eyes, unwavering; positively sure of what he was going to say next. "And when I die, I want to die of old age in a rocking chair on a sunny porch with old you and old Hermione next to me, and I want it to feel like sleep. "And that's it."  
  
Ron, his mouth open just enough to show his surprise at this baring of his best friend's soul, was stunned. In an alien yet familiar gesture, he wrapped his arms around broken, lost, human Harry. "I want something too..." he whispered, and softly, carefully, yet surely, he placed his lips on Harry's, though they still tasted acrid from the purging of the night's dinner. He felt Harry smile, kiss back.  
  
They pulled away after a while, both grinning unsure grins. Silence for a few moments. And then,  
  
"Did you mean all that stuff you said, Har?" "Well, there's one appendix to add" Harry nestled his head on Ron's chest, and the redhead placed his hand in ebony locks. "But, yeah."  
  
Ron smiled broadly, ruffled Harry's hair and said,  
  
"I think we can manage that."  
  
Fín  
  
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Love it? Hate it? Review regardless, if you would be so kind, criticism is welcome.  
  
-HFS 


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